Simply put, self-reflection (also known as “personal reflection”) is taking the time to think about, meditate on, evaluate, and give serious thought to your behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, motivations, and desires. That’s what I do now.
Not long ago, I passed a milestone marking 55 years since I began writing my first published article in a daily newspaper. I started keeping all the clippings since then. Believe me, it’s like a book. As I re-read my first articles, I was amazed, I ever kept it up. But now you couldn’t pay me to stop.
Nowadays all my publications are stored in my electronic-archive.
Back to my clippings. Can you imagine that there are some benefits from keeping them? From life experiences, I see that progress and failure are both parts of my journey. My columns are mostly a view into a mirror. I am reminded of God’s grace when I read (and wrote before) how He helped me to find solutions to problems. I also gained insight from past struggles that help with issues I am currently facing. I remember one of my previous columns entitled “If failures get results”.
God has indeed been faithfully working in my life.
I read a story by Dennis Fisher, who didn’t keep publishing clippings but a spiritual journal. He advised: “Journalism may be useful to you too. It can help you see more clearly what God is teaching you on life’s journey. To begin a journal, record your struggles, reflect on a verse that is especially comforting or challenging, or write a prayer of thankfulness for God’s faithfulness.”
The most awaited season of the year has finally come. For many of us, December is still a glow that blossoms across the eastern horizon bringing the promise of a new beginning. December and Christmas should be the song to awaken our hardened hearts, to touch those people around us, who might have waited a long time for such a move. Let’s become “new people” at last.
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